Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Sold to Be a Wife

By: Maggie Hartley
Narrated by: Penny McDonald
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Fourteen-year-old Shazia has been taken into care after a conversation at school leads her teacher to suspect that the teenager's family are planning to send her to Pakistan for an arranged marriage.

To her family's fury, Shazia is sent to live with foster carer Maggie Hartley whilst social services investigate. But with Shazia denying everything and social services unable to find any evidence to support the teacher's fears, Shazia is allowed to return home.

But a few weeks later, Maggie is woken up in the middle of the night by a phone call from a terrified Shazia, who has managed to escape the family home through a window. Sobbing, she confesses to Maggie that her parents are planning to send her to Pakistan to be married in a few days, and have threatened to kill her if she speaks out again.

Returned to Maggie's care, Shazia is petrified that her parents will track her down and kill her, and Maggie must be on constant alert. But the worst is yet to come when it emerges that Shazia is the victim of FGM. Can Maggie help this damaged and traumatised young girl understand what has happened to her and to find a way to heal?

Read by Penny MacDonald

©2018 Maggie Hartley (P)2018 Orion Publishing Group
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Too Scared to Cry cover art
Unsafe cover art
Nobody Loves Me cover art
Where's My Mummy? cover art
Taken cover art
Broken cover art
A Boy Without Hope cover art
Betrayed: The Heartbreaking True Story of a Struggle to Escape a Cruel Life Defined by Family Honour cover art
Saving Danny cover art
The Silent Witness cover art
Runaway Girl cover art
Silenced cover art
The Saddest Girl in the World cover art
Cruel to Be Kind cover art
Can I Let You Go? cover art
Let Me Go cover art

What listeners say about Sold to Be a Wife

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    119
  • 4 Stars
    19
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    109
  • 4 Stars
    11
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    106
  • 4 Stars
    11
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

An insight in to the often very difficult job of being a foster carer

An honest account of one woman’s commitment to the role of foster carer focusing on the main character; a young Asian girl in her care, who having escaped her family and the threat of being married off to her cousin in Pakistan, has to learn to come to terms with some terrible things from her past and an uncertain future. Sensitively written and thought provoking.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Maggie does it again

Brill story line that I learned so much from reading and truely enjoyed, beware tissues required

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Harrowing

This is an incredibly moving book but the horrors endured by the central character are so disturbing that I would say this is a book is not for the faint hearted.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A provocative insight into a mysterious system

I liked the realistic way this book was written. I would recommend this book to anybody. I gave it this rating because I felt that it was well written.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Sold to be a wife

Very good read. fantastic. As a 69-year-old male not my first choice of book. It was well read. thank you

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

brilliant book and well read. such a sad tale

such a sad story but really lovely at the same time to know there are foster carers out there like this lady

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic book

Such a sad story beautifully told. Really hope this poor girl has a happy life now.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic as always.

Maggie Hartly is a really good author. The stories she writes are always good and she's clearly a caring person who does everything she can for the children in her care. This was quite a complicated case but her Cmpassion and care for Shazia was amazing and lovely to see. Maggie is clearly somebody who loves her job and it's always great to read her material.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Well written and engaging

Maggie Hartley's fostering memoirs are well written and very moving. They give an insight into the world of fostering, adoption and parenting that has, I believed made me a better teacher and parent. Along with other fostering memoirs, these books have inspired my mum to consider a fostering carer and I hope to foster once my own children are older. Thank you Maggie.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

good just missing something

while I really enjoyed it it was just missing something however I would still recommend for a light read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!